Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Weekend Summary

The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to [email protected] with "Membership" in the subject line.)

Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to [email protected]. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.

On October 16, an African jihadi group released a video that called on individuals to immigrate to the Congo, possibly referring to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and featured an Arabic-speaking militant who proclaimed that "this is the Islamic State in Central Africa."

"After the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan, the mujahideen turned towards Kashmir with the desire for martyrdom and liberating the Muslims of Kashmir from the arms of cow-worshippers [i.e. Hindus]. As Ilyas Kashmiri... was a well-trained experienced commander and perhaps that was the reason that the [Pakistani] security establishment didn't consider it suitable to let him [be] independent and told him... to help Kashmiris."

On October 21, 2017, Al-Malahem, the media arm of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released an audio recording in which the group's senior commander Khaled Batarfi condemned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for imprisoning dozens of prominent scholars and writers and accused him of secularizing the country.

Maulana Masood Azhar, the emir of Pakistan-based jihadi organization Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), wrote a column to mark the 16th year of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, launched on October 7, 2001, in the Urdu-language weekly Haftroza Al-Qalam published by JeM.

On October 25, 2017, a group of jihadi scholars launched an initiative to reconcile jihadi factions in Syria. The move came following tensions that had been brewing among these groups since Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) – formerly Jabhat Fath Al-Sham and Jabhat Al-Nusra – announced that it was cutting ties with Al-Qaeda in July 2016.

On October 23, 2017, the Shahada News Agency, a media branch of Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen, published a special report on its website titled "Djibouti – The Smallest Country with the Largest Number of Superpower Bases on its Territory."

On October 26, 2017, the Al-Zallaqa News media agency of the Mali-based jihadi group Jama'at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimin ("The Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims," GSIM) posted on its Telegram channel a communique in which the group claimed that it raided a Malian military camp in central Mali that is guarding a site there that belongs to the French company Sogea-Satom SA, which operates as a subsidiary of Vinci Construction.

On October 20 and 21, 2017, the Al-Wafa media outlet, associated with the Islamic State (ISIS), released another series of posters in Russian, English and Arabic threatening terror in the West and at the 2018 World Cup games, to take place in Russia next summer.

On October 24, 2017, the pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Al-Wafa' media foundation published new posters on its Telegram channel threatening Russia, which will be hosting the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2018, and Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi.

A video titled "Knights of the Front," released on October 21, 2017 by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Al-Dijlah Province in Iraq, documents an attack on positions of Shi'ite militias in the southern Al-Shirqat area.

On October 19, 2017, in a report in the Islamic State's (ISIS) weekly newspaper Al-Naba', the group announced that it had executed a man and a woman in ISIS's Al-Khayr province, Syria, for "uttering blasphemous phrases and insulting the religion and Allah.

For the past several years, Google Plus has remained a reliable platform for Islamic State (ISIS) supporters wishing to share and retrieve links to the latest ISIS releases. Numerous Google Plus groups are used by ISIS activists, and links featuring old and new releases easily circulate via posts within many of these groups.

Following are excerpts of a statement published by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban's shadow government) translated from Urdu: "After [U.S. President Donald] Trump's announcement of the new strategy, the happiness of Ashraf Ghani, the head of the Kabul administration, has reached the level of madness. He has thanked Trump many times. He has very excitedly welcomed this strategy. He is demanding that more bombs and weapons of mass destruction be given to the Afghan government. With much enthusiasm, Ashraf Ghani has warned the mujahideen to throw away their weapons; otherwise, they will be eliminated from the face of the earth.